Bacca di sambuco

Elderberry is the fruit of the elder shrub, used in food as a flavouring, colouring fruit, or base for syrups, cordials and jams. It's valued for its dark colour, tart flavour, and traditional use in cold-remedy syrups. In the body, cooked, ripe elderberry pulp is just fruit: sugars, acids, pigments (anthocyanins) and fibre, nothing unusual for most people. The catch is that raw or unripe elderberries, and especially the seeds, leaves, stems and bark, contain cyanogenic glycosides (compounds like sambunigrin) that can release small amounts of cyanide-related compounds when chewed or digested raw.